Whatever He Says

On May 20th 2007, I wrote a blog post entitled, Facebook Holdout , all about my resistance to the social networking phenomenon sweeping the nation at the time. I said that I was not joining; no way Jose! I was not going to jump on this bandwagon, for various well thought out reasons. I already had sufficient internet addictions and besides, I am a bit of a Luddite. I'm a few years behind most others when it comes to technology and gadgets. If not for Paul I would not even have a dishwasher or microwave. It was about two weeks ago that my friend Johanne asked me to join Facebook as part of a group of writers for her newspaper, and, only to oblige her, I did. For the first day or so I added the bare minimum of information and then I began to check out the potential “friends” already on Facebook. At 58 I found myself asking people if they would be my friends and waiting, with bated breath, for them to confirm if they would. Oh, the mortification of rejection! I began to get “friend in...

Isaiah 43:1 (New International Version) 1 But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. It was almost a month ago when I received an email saying, "I've added you as a friend on Facebook..." It came from Brenda, who had accidentally invited everyone in her address book to become her cyber-buddies. At that point I didn't really even know what Facebook was, but since then I've learned a lot about this social networking phenomenon that's captured the interest and time of a huge percentage of the population--mainly those in their teens and twenties but also a surprising number of seniors, including my dear mother in law who is nearing her eighty first birthday and who is connected with a host of grandchildren. I must say that I was amazed to see her face on Facebook--using the photo she'd had taken for the church directory! It wa...